Epiphany
by SongbirdNoodles
Summary: 5:30 AM at the diner: confession time for Lorelai. L/L immediately post 7x22.


**Epiphany**

**Epiphany**: _a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience._

"What are you doing here?"

She's roused from the stupor she's fallen into when the diner door creaks open, and his voice shakes her awake. Blinking, she tries to get up from the steps to the diner where she's been huddled for an hour, ever since she woke up at four AM and it suddenly all made sense and there was no point in trying to go back to sleep, not when she knew he was going to be opening up at five thirty anyway.

"Hey." She rubs her eyes, takes one look at him, so familiar, god, and suddenly she's wide awake. "I had an epiphany."

"How long have you been sitting there?"

"Not that long. Listen, Luke-"

"Come on in, I'll make you some coffee, and get you a sweater, you must be freezing." Dawn's creeping over the square, painting everything in a faint pink light. Dewdrops sparkeling on the roof of their gazebo, where they toasted to their future with Zima a million years ago. It looks nearly as magical as it did that night, and she's transported with longing.

"I'm not cold," she says, eyes roaming over him, remembering how right it felt, in his arms. "Luke, seriously-"

He holds out a hand and pulls her to her feet. "You had an epiphany."

"I did."

"Come on in."

Meekly, she follows him inside. He steers her towards the counter, rummages around behind it and hands her a shirt of his which she wraps herself into. It feels like being hugged. They stare at each other, well aware that the intimacy of the moment is making further conversations unnescessary, well aware that by now, they've both figured out thatthey just don't work without each other.

"So you had an epiphany?" Luke finally breaks the silence.

"Oh! Yeah." They haven't exchanged more than pleasantries since they kissed at Rory's goodbye party two days ago. This time, she wanted to be sure. And now she is. "Do you want to hear it?"

"Sounds like I've got no choice," he mutters, glancing at her, pure early-morning Luke frustrated with her caffeine problem and kaleidoscopic mind. It's a look straight out of the past, before there was a them, and she knows now that under it, there was a breathtaking capability for loving her hidden underneath. Suddenly she doesn't really want to know if it's still there. She'd be happy sitting here forever, needling him as the run rises outside, as Babette strolls by with her cat food and Kirk practices acrobatics in the square. She just wants to sit here, with him.That'd be enough.

Almost.

She takes a deep breath. "Before I tell you about my epiphany, you need to promise me that you do want to here it. Because it's kind of an epiphany about... us. And if you don't want to hear that, I don't want to tell you. I don't want to be that person. So-"

"No," he says, too quickly. "No, of course I want to hear it."

"Really?" And again, that's enough, all she needed to hear. Almost. "Okay."

"Okay."

"Basically, remember the karaoke?"

He stares at her. "I think so."

"I meant it."

"I figured."

Now it's her turn to stare. "Excuse me?"

"You were singing it for Rory," he says, but she knows him too well, recognizes backpeddling, and her heart starts beating in that irregular rythem that his coffee was never responsible for.

"I was," she admits. "I mean, at first. But then you walked in. And I kept singing. And I wasn't singing it for Rory anymore," she says, quietly. "I was singing it for you." He opens his mouth but he ploughs on, because she knew all this before this morning, and so did he, and she knew that knew, and she never wants to get tangled up in the web of what they thought they knew about each other with him ever again. "And at the same time it was for Rory. It was for both of you. Because you -both of you- are the most important people I'll ever have in my life."

And now the words are spillling out of her, words that were never even part of the initial epiphany, words that came to her as she sat there waiting for him, watching the sky over Stars Hollow change from Indigo to pinkish grey streaked with promising gold. And now the sky's turning blue and she keeps talking, not daring to look him in the eye as confused images of the past ten years rush past her, Rory growing up and her and Luke falling in love, and falling apart; Chris hovering on the edge of her life, those last, desperat attempts to revive something that should have been dead a long time ago.

"And the thing is," she continues, "that I always thought I could never have the whole package, and I was chasing after some -I don't know- some fragmented, clichéd version of that I thought that package was with Chris, and I was too stupid to realize that I had it all along. Luke, from the day you put up that swing for her in our backyard, you've been more like a father for her than Chris ever was, and you were always there for here and there for me and loving me. And now that she's gone, I'm done with chasing after the stupid package, because I had it once, and if that's all that there is to it, then fine, but if it's not, then, Luke, maybe we could have it again? Because the thing is, I really did mean the part about always loving you. I meant it for Rory, but I meant it for you just as much." And now she looks at him, the sun hitting the glass window to Taylor's Ice Cream Shoppe and making his profile glow strangely. "Luke, you're... you're a part of my family. You, and Rory, and April if you want her to, that's as much family as I'll ever need. Well, and my parents, since apparently I've agreed to keep Friday Night Dinners going, but don't worry, you don't have to come along to those, I'll go alone. But... I'd kind of like to not go anywhere else alone." She takes a deep breath. Forces herself to stop talking. "That was my epiphany."

Silence. A car drives by outside, and despite the fact that she's staring at the cup of coffee he's just placed in front of her with enough intensity to make it hover in thin air, she finds herself capable of wondering who's driving through Stars Hollow at 5:45 AM.

"Luke?"

She looks up, and he's following the car's progress around the town square with his eyes. When she says his name, he turns and looks at her, his face stoic. "That was some epiphany."

"Yeah."

"I like the part about Friday Night Dinners, can I get that in writing?" And the corners of his mouth are twitching and suddenly,she feels light, lighter than air as she beams back at him.

"You got a pen?"

He produces one from the counter, but instead of handing it to her, he takes a napkin and writes something down. She doesn't need to wait for him to slide it over to see what it says.

"Of course I'll marry you."


End file.
